Information society : agenda for action in the UK : evidence received after 31 March 1996 / Select Committee on Science and Technology.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
- Date:
- 1996
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: Information society : agenda for action in the UK : evidence received after 31 March 1996 / Select Committee on Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.
58/324 page 360
![23 April 1996] Chairman contd.] There is no doubt that most of my colleagues could give plenty of examples from their experience to back that statement. Since privatisation in 1984 we have invested some £30 billion, mainly in the United Kingdom and mainly with United Kingdom suppliers. We continue to invest at a rate of about £2 billion to £3 billion annually in this area. We are investing heavily in the development of new multimedia services, things like the BT Interactive Series Trial and CampusWorld and a range of other multimedia services and this is despite the regulatory uncertainty that certainly hedges us. These investments are very large and they are funded from the profits of today’s mature products. I would like to emphasise the point that telephony is today’s mature product in a multimedia world. Let me say a little about BT’s R&D services. Our R&D and technical services budget amounts to some £500 million per annum and that is focused on the BT labs at Martlesham and in five other centres around the United Kingdom. But also we spend significantly with the universities and colleges in the United Kingdom as part of our portfolio of activities in research and development. This work includes fundamental research into new applications and in research into the impact of the new superhighway services, which also concern us. We believe very strongly that the superhighway will be key to economic development in the United Kingdom during the next decade—really key. Its real value lies in the huge IT industry which is going to be stimulated by the availability of the underlying broadband networks. Not just the networks in themselves but the whole plethora of activity which sits on and around this network activity. All of this industry is going to be engaged in the development, provision and support of new products and services, only some of which we are aware of today. The superhighway itself is a digital broadband switched network and as such, in our opinion, it does not exist anywhere in the world on a scale where it is accessible to a major part of the population in the area. There are trials and pilots and various bits and pieces but there is no ubiquitous superhighway active today. We think it is vital that the Government does everything possible to create an environment which promotes the development of the superhighway and its applications in the United Kingdom. We believe that all companies should be encouraged to participate, including the national telecoms operators, and that the regulatory conditions should not discourage companies such as BT because we believe that we have a great deal to contribute in this new area. I think that is all I would like to say by way of opening. Chairman] Thank you very much. Lord Haskel 502. You said, Dr Rudge, that you think the Government should do everything possible to see that there is the creation of an information superhighway. What is it that the Government can do that you and the 150 other operators you mentioned cannot do to create a_ national information infrastructure? [ Continued (Dr Rudge) Let me offer one or two comments. One is that from BT’s point of view we are not looking for Government money in this area. What we are looking for is an open playing field that allows us to attack this market, and indeed stimulate it, because’ largely it does not exist as yet. We are actually growing it, and need to do this without unnecessary constraints. By “unnecessary” I mean regulatory constraints that prevent us from using certain technologies in certain areas, and which constrain us from developing new services by guidelines which were maybe sensible when they were introduced but no longer have much meaning in a very fluid and changing new environment. The IT environment is one that is changing almost ona daily basis. It is very difficult to take rules of ten years ago and apply them today sensibly. We are looking for some removal of these unnecessary hurdles. The Government can do the things it already does to a degree, for example, encouraging research and development. Indeed funding some of that research and development as it does through its various agencies, and ensuring that some of that is directed at this new area which is of critical importance. I think in relation to the key issue I could express the regulatory guidelines differently. What we are really looking for is to construct a marketplace, or a market structure, which allows us to be unfettered to the degree that we can be unfettered. We fully appreciate that some regulation is required. 503. The problem, of course, is that you are so overwhelmingly large in the marketplace that the other smaller companies without some sort of regulation would not be able to operate or would not be able to compete. How would you deal with that? (Dr Rudge) We are a large company. You said we are large in this marketplace but in fact we are not dominant in this marketplace, because the marketplace itself in terms of new applications and new services is not one that is only addressed by telecommunication operators. It is being addressed by the whole of the IT industry. Lord Flowers 504. And all over the world you could add. (Dr Rudge) And internationally, yes. We are just one player, one national player in this case as far as the United Kingdom is concerned. We are only one and there are many, other players. Indeed today when we look at where our competition is coming from in these new market areas, first of all we certainly look internationally and, secondly, we do not just look at telecommunications operators but at everybody in the IT industry from the computer industry right through, because competition comes from many different directions today. Lord Gregson 505. Since constraints were placed on BT we are now facing a digital transformation which makes an enormous difference. The constraints that were applied to you were applied in the days when nobody thought that this stage would arrive. Would you like to tell us where the constraints pinch? It is terribly](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32218631_0058.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
